These days you can go online and find out just how bad you are: a site called MyFootprint.org, for example, recently informed me that, if everybody lived like I lived, we would need 5.1 Earths. Then again, the Hubble telescope, poking like a knitting needle into the sac of space, has revealed that there are 80 billion galaxies swarming around out there — 13 galaxies for each of us, more or less. In that context, my need for 5.1 Earths seems modest, even abstemious. I think I’d keep the first Earth as my private Earth — a place to take naps and long walks with my iPod. The other four would be social/professional, and then that last .1 of an Earth would be where I kept my socks and underpants.
There’s a commercial out there now for some monster vehicle or other — shots of a desert, or a mountain range, and a plunging SUV, and a meaty baritone voice shouting, “In a world where POWER and TORQUE are KING . . . ” Whoever wrote that is a genius. Crude thrones are lording it over us: power and torque are the kings of our world, and they are driving it to destruction. Gestures of insane grandeur may be required in the fight against them, bold and violent statements — to these necessities, meekly seeking to minimize one’s carbon footprint doesn’t quite seem to answer. But, as the amoeba said to his girlfriend, it’s a start.
Related:
What Republicans can teach the Greens, The amazing race, The alt-candidates, More 
- What Republicans can teach the Greens
Take advantage of the chaos
- The amazing race
For the past year, presidential politics has been building to the crescendo that is the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary.
- The alt-candidates
A revolutionary, Ralph Nader, a Baptist minister, and two former congressmen from Georgia are all running for president in Rhode Island.
- Four Greens fight for their party’s nomination
Supporters of Cynthia McKinney say that choosing a presidential nominee doesn’t have to mean selecting between a black and a female candidate.
- Local activists crusade to cut circumcisions
What do William Shakespeare, Don Johnson, Sean Hannity, Redd Foxx, and Ralph Nader have in common with Jenna Jameson flicks and 70 percent of men worldwide? They're all uncut.
- Crossword: ''Bizarro world''
Everyone's against me!
- Letter to the Boston editor: April 13, 2007
Ralph Nader was not the reason for Gore’s loss.
- Get out of town?
Your editorial “ On Moving City Hall ” shows a common misunderstanding: City Hall Plaza is not Mayor Menino’s to sell.
- Obama outside the Boom
A year ago, when I saw Obama speak on the Durham campus of the University of New Hampshire, he did not sound the way he does now.
- Dance, monkey: Andrea Henry
Immediately projected all my unfulfilled dreams onto her. She’s already signed up for Patriots cheerleading camp.
- Got sustainability?
Growing numbers of Americans are taking up bicycling and gardening, and perhaps reconsidering the more costly habits of the not-so-distant boom times.
- Less
Topics:
Lifestyle Features
, Science and Technology, Culture and Lifestyle, Food and Cooking, More
, Science and Technology, Culture and Lifestyle, Food and Cooking, Foods, Fruits and Vegetables, Hobbies and Pastimes, Rilo Kiley, Al Gore, Sciences, Astronomy, Less
